She grins back. "Don't worry, I'm honestly not that into sports. I know exercise is important, but I'd rather just go on walks or something. I bet there are a lot of awesome cheap summer camps, and of course for the rest of the summer public libraries are the crown jewel of civilization." She's lowkey expecting to end up having her browser history read, but the nonfiction section of a public library is the most wholesome place on earth and it has totally failed to occur to her that anyone would consider denying it to anyone else.

"Of course. That would be delightful." Maybe Evelyn won't borrow trouble yet; she obviously intends to keep an eye on what books Miranda is seeking out, and if any of it is concerning then she will have to bring it up, but Miranda seems receptive in general to actual explanations of rules. And if she really just wants to read science books, it's not like those are really age-inappropriate, just too advanced for most children to follow. 

"I was looking for education content online," she adds. "But if you're going to be using the computer, I think we do need to have a conversation about Internet rules, because there are rules I have to follow there as well." It feels bizarre to be having this conversation with a six-year-old instead of a fourteen-year-old, but it seems like academically Miranda might be ahead of some fourteen-year-olds she's known, so. "Did your parents ever talk to you about how to stay safe on the Internet?" 

"I know there's a lot of lies and scams and--" how the heck does she say porn without saying the word porn--"inappropriate pictures, but I just want Wikipedia and programming websites and ideally to have an email address. If it would make you feel better to look at my browser history I'm open to that. Though at some point I might want to send emails to friends and that might be weirder for you to read? We can cross that bridge when we come to it, for now I'm not planning on doing anything that would benefit from privacy. I don't even have any friends with email addresses."

Nod. "Educational websites are generally safe, though keep in mind that anyone can edit Wikipedia and not everything written there is true. There are parental controls on my computer that should block sites with, er, inappropriate pictures, but if you do find anything that upsets or disturbs you, please tell me and we can talk about it. You won't be in trouble."

Personally Evelyn feels like six is much too young to have an email address - what email could she possibly need to send? - but it could be worse. At least she's not asking for a Facebook account. And the computer is in a public location in the house, with parental controls and browser history; she won't be surfing on her personal mobile device where Evelyn has no way of monitoring it, like far too many teenagers these days do. 

She frowns. "What I want you to be very careful about, is making friends on the internet, and especially if you're not telling them your age. I imagine it might be very appealing - and you're very clever, I'm sure you could convincingly sound much older than you are in writing - but the thing is, people on the Internet can say whatever they like about who they are. I'm sure most of them are perfectly lovely, but there are a few bad apples, and you wouldn't know. Does that make sense?" 

"I won't tell any internet strangers my personal information and I definitely won't agree to meet up with anyone in real life. If I want to send emails to people who aren't friends from summer camp or something like that I'll ask you about it first." She's going to frogboil her with wikipedia talk pages is what she's going to do. After at least three days and ideally a week of extremely wholesome read-only activity so it looks organic and not like a Plot. (It doesn't count as plotting against people if the plot doesn't harm their interests at all, but it is plotting in their general direction.)

"Very good. It sounds like you know how to be responsible." And Evelyn is very tempted to give her a cuddle, but she knows from long experience that the last thing most kids newly in foster care want is a hug from a near-stranger who is, notably, NOT their parent. Some kids do seek affection and get clingy almost immediately, but that's almost more worrying in a way, indicating a lack of deep attachment to their natural family. She'll offer a goodnight hug and kiss at bedtime, while making it clear that it's fine if Miranda says no, and then let her take the lead from there. 

She glances at the clock. "It's nearly seven-thirty. Which I think is a reasonable bedtime for a child your age, once you're in school, but I’m guessing it’s not what you’re used to? So for today we won't rush it."  smile. “How would you like fifteen minutes of computer time right now, and you can start getting ready for bed after that?”

"Sure, sounds good!" That's way earlier than she expected but she knows nothing about normal six-year-old physiology; for all she knows she'll be out like a light in an hour. If her circadian rhythm has matched up to her body then she'll be able to sleep at a plausible hour; if it's stayed with her mind then she'll lie awake scheming for multiple hours and "have a mysterious sleep disorder" if she can't adjust over the next week or two. 

So, what operating system is Evelyn a partisan of? She comes off as a Windows woman, more's the pity, but you can't judge a book by its cover. If Evelyn uses Ubuntu then that's evidence Miranda was sent back in time by an intelligence with her best interests at heart.

Yup, Windows! It looks like an old Windows machine too, both based on the noticeably bleached area on half of the casing where the sun must sometimes hit it through the small window high on the wall, and the fact that she's still running Windows XP. Also Evelyn has clearly never cleaned up her desktop files maybe literally ever and the entire screen is cluttered with various text documents; most of the filenames look vaguely educational.

At least her Internet is reasonably fast. (This is Jeremy's doing; he has a laptop for schoolwork, and complained about how long it took to download large files.) 

This is a perfectly reasonable set of priorities for someone's purchasing decisions to reflect and she will be a hardware snob when she can afford her own box. Figuring out how to set up a dev environment on Windows can wait until she has a longer block than 15 minutes; for now she can just read some fun chill Wikipedia articles with . . . Internet Explorer. Figures. How sus would it be to immediately ask to download Chrome? Probably enough sus+rude that she should at least put it off; Wikipedia is Wikipedia regardless. 

Hmmm, what's a nice fun topic to wind down with before bed? Evo-devo is cool and she's never read as much about it as she'd like but it's too close to "where babies come from". The Federal Reserve is interesting but she wants to start with something STEM to set up accurate stereotypes. Trilobites. Yeah.

Background tab on biostratigraphy . . . background tab on the benthic zone . . . trilobite swarms! Semiterrestrial trilobites! What a lovely world she lives in, in the grand scheme of things.

Evelyn putters about the house and mostly doesn't obviously hover, but is clearly trying to be ambiently Around and keeping an eye on Miranda's computer use. (Not closely, she's not actually coming nearby enough to read the words on the screen, just get the general sense that Miranda is, in fact, on Wikipedia and not trying to look at social media or something even less age-appropriate.) 

Fifteen minutes later, she slips over to tell Miranda that it's time to get ready for bed, and - ends up beaming, surprised, at the screen. "Wow! It looks like you're learning some fascinating science stuff. It's time to start getting ready for bed, but I'd love to hear about it." 

"Ah, so it is--if you want me to reliably notice when it's a specific time without someone having to point it out you should probably give me a kitchen timer or something." She wants a SMARTPHONE with ALARMS and CHECKLISTS and all the other parts of her extended brain she's used to having. She shares a couple of trilobite facts while looking through the bedroom for pajamas and the bathroom for toothbrush, toothpaste, and dental floss, and then stops talking so she can make use of the latter in a civilized manner. Also she attempts to subtly scope out the shower for soap and shampoo, for scheming reasons.

Evelyn has a routine for this! She's already set out spare pajamas in Miranda's approximate size (she pulled them out of the storage ottoman before she had met Miranda) and a spare toothbrush and facecloth. The bathroom has a range of toothpastes including various children's toothpastes in non-minty flavors, and floss. There's a wall-mounted shelf beside the bathtub with soap and shampoo and conditioner (all of them strategically transferred into travel-size bottles because Evelyn has recently looked after a whole series of children who liked to make bathroom messes.) There's an electric heated towel rack. 

(Evelyn watches her discreetly to see if she seems to know how to brush her teeth properly, but quickly ducks out and stands in the hall instead once the answer is clearly yes.) 

She flosses and brushes and gets a mental habit-trigger to write a diary entry but she really cannot be arsed to deal with that right now. Evelyn doesn't strike her as the diary-reading type but that's not nearly certain enough to write her actual thoughts down in plaintext.

"Is there a particular time you'd like me to be up in the morning for clothes shopping?"

"- Well, I was really hoping your assigned social worker would be by today so we'd have a better idea of our schedule tomorrow, but things seem to be moving slowly. I don't need you up at any particular time for shopping," on the assumption that even a very sleep-deprived child can't possibly sleep past noon, "but if you do sleep in, it's possible I'll end up having to wake you if the social worker is only available first thing. Either way there won't be anything before nine am." 

"Okay. Goodnight; I'll see you in the morning." She still isn't tired yet but it might just be being keyed up from the shenanigans. Once Evelyn is no longer watching and her door is shut: does her room possess an alarm clock?

Evelyn backs off and goes downstairs, stepping less quietly than she might usually; it seems like Miranda might be more able to relax if she feels like she has privacy and Evelyn is no longer paying attention to her.

There is not an alarm clock in evidence. 

(There has been, at various points over the years, but these days Evelyn mostly fosters younger children - she finds it's simpler when there's a big age difference between them and Jeremy, he's able to be patient with younger kids but can get genuinely quite upset when older teenagers recklessly break rules and tease him for being such a goody-goody - and she hasn't really seen the necessity, since she always wakes her foster children in time to get ready for school. Also, cheap digital alarm clocks are confusing, both for young children and for herself. And she's formed a habit of minimizing how many objects in a child's room will break irreparably if thrown violently at the wall in a fit of rage.) 

This is inconvenient, because, you see, she has a scheme which requires being up at least an hour earlier than Evelyn and she doesn't trust her circadian rhythm to cooperate. If there's a window she'll leave the curtains wide open and that should help. 

Her circadian rhythm really does not want to cooperate with falling asleep before 21:00. She makes medium-term plans and contemplates possible motives of the aliens/simulators/her own highly timey-wimeyed self/whatever else sent her here until she falls asleep and wakes up at whichever of dawn or 06:00 comes first.

What huh where is she what's wrong with her body oh right all of that shit happened. Fuuuuuuck everything.

Is she in time to sneakily get showered and changed and present this as a fait accompli before Evelyn can have opinions about it? She doesn't want to pick any unnecessary fights but she also does not want anyone else's opinion on when or how she should become clean. (Her own shower opinions are pretty conventional except for washing her hair with cold water so the dye lasts longer; it's about the principle of the thing.)

Dawn comes a little before 6 am in Reno at this time of year. She seems to be up before Evelyn, at least, and can sneak out into the hall, notice that Evelyn's door is still closed with no light coming through the crack, and reach the bathroom without incident.

...Unfortunately, Evelyn is a light sleeper, and also on a hair-trigger because it's her first night with a new foster child and she's always on high alert. As soon as Miranda starts running the tap or shower, she jolts awake, glances at her own digital clock, and then slips out of bed to go check on her new foster child. She remembers within three seconds that Miranda is probably not going to be up to trouble, it seems implausible, and of course there's a limited amount of trouble she can cause in the bathroom because Evelyn has carefully made sure it contains nothing sharp or fragile - and she can't lock herself in because the bathroom door doesn't lock - but Evelyn still has habits. 

The door is shut. Evelyn pads over and knocks gently, without opening it. "Morning! You're up early. Are you finding everything all right?" 

There is talking but Miranda can't parse it over the shower.  What kind of uncivilized person tries to have a conversation while someone is showering fucking whatever. "I can't hear you but I'll be out in ten minutes!" she yells in the hopes that this will placate presumably-Evelyn long enough to get clean and shut the water off.

Evelyn doesn't quite catch all of that but she definitely gets the idea that Miranda is busy and wants privacy. And she doesn't hear any suspicious non-shower sounds. She backs off, and heads back to her own room to get dressed, throwing on a dressing gown and leaving the door ajar, because she wants Miranda to feel comfortable and like she has the privacy she's clearly used to, but also she really wants to be sure she hears it if any disasters happen. 

Miranda takes an extremely normal shower and puts her hair back in the same abnormal style as yesterday and puts on clothes that are among the more colorful of the available options but presumably still within Evelyn's concept of normal what with them being in her house and then emerges with intent to breakfast. If Evelyn emerges in response she can have a cheery "good morning"; Miranda is always 90% less of a bitch after a hot shower and a change of clothes.

(The selection of clothes that Evelyn left out in Miranda's room weren't sized to fit her exactly, and were mostly pretty "girly". Evelyn's gender assumptions, or maybe the gender assumptions of the stores where she shops, clearly include that most little girls like pink, and that "tomboyish" girls who want to wear pants instead of skirts or dresses will prefer dark or neutral colors. Miranda can choose between several brightly-colored shirts, where two out of three options are glittery and/or Disney-themed, and can easily find a pair of stretchy jogging pants that fit her better than the slacks she appeared in.) 

Evelyn hears the shower stop and then Miranda's footsteps leaving the bathroom, and - carefully doesn't actually emerge from her room, in case Miranda is planning to run back to her own room still wearing only a towel, but does call out a cheerful "Good morning! I hope you found everything all right?" 

She's not wearing a towel; she's wearing the glitteriest shirt that doesn't have a horrible texture and the least leggings-like of the pants.

"I did, yeah. Having hotel-sized shampoo when you have lots of people in your house temporarily is very clever. I'm looking forward to breakfast and Walmart--oh wait, social worker and then Walmart, right?" She's not looking forward to the social worker, who will probably be an innocent person who deserves better than to be adversarially optimized at but also constrained by the law so heavily that Miranda will have to adversarially optimize at her.

Well, no, that's not quite true. She always has a choice. She just intends to choose based on what serves her own interests rather than on any abstract principles, and feels no guilt about this.

Evelyn ducks out of her room. "That's right. And I imagine you'll meet my son this morning, though probably not for another hour or two, he's not an early bird like you. And he got in late last night, he's been prepping for his SATs and has a study group with some friends. He knows you're here and he's looking forward to meeting you." 

And she can head downstairs with Miranda. Miranda being an early riser is going to be convenient for school, once that's a consideration, but at the moment she's slightly wishing Miranda were perhaps a bit less of an early bird, she always ends up feeling like she started her day on the wrong foot if she doesn't have a chance to drink her first cup of coffee by herself in peace. 

There are plenty of breakfast options even once animal products are ruled out. Evelyn stocks granola and muesli and Cheerios and bran flakes, and there's pre-sliced bread in the freezer available for toasting, and jam and peanut butter as spreads. 

"I look forward to meeting him too." Both as a fellow human being and as a source of SAT prep workbooks. The time for being gracious and not a ridiculous showoff is when there aren't effectively years of freedom and employment at stake.

Miranda would totally let Evelyn drink a cup of coffee by herself in peace if she had any way of knowing this was desirable! Instead she will simply sit quietly and eat granola while trying and failing to remember what the state of fake milk was in 2010.

She hopes she gets on with Jeremy. She's confident in her ability to be amiable housemates with anyone who isn't a thief, a vandal, a smoker, a complete slob, or loud during sleep hours, but it would be pretty great to additionally make a friend. Hopefully he'll have some kind of interest she can show at least an unsophisticated interest in and get out of the "boring little kid" pigeonhole.